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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23822950">Murky Water</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyNotFly/pseuds/WhyNotFly'>WhyNotFly</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Aro Archives [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Aromantic Martin Blackwood, Cottage Fic, Heavy internalized arophobia, Hopeful Ending, M/M, but the internalized arophobia is not all wiped away, use of "broken" and "inhuman" by an aromantic person to describe himself</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:22:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,538</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23822950</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyNotFly/pseuds/WhyNotFly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin decides to wait a few days after getting to the safe house before he confronts Jon.  They’ve been through so much.  Jon has done so much for him.  He deserves to be happy for a little while.  Martin can ignore his discomfort for Jon’s sake, because Jon deserves everything.  Jon deserves the man he loves, and if (for some impossible to understand reason) he’s decided that is Martin, then Jon deserves Martin.</p>
<p>So Martin waits.  He’s good at waiting.  He’s been waiting his entire life for something he knows only by name.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Aro Archives [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714381</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>229</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Aspec Martin Blackwood Week</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Murky Water</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Please note: This work contains heavy internalized arophobia and use of the word "broken" and a brief allusion to being inhuman used by an aromantic character to describe himself.  The ending is hopeful, but the term broken is not directly refuted and the internalized arophobia is not fixed by the end of the story.  Please read responsibly.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Martin decides to wait a few days after getting to the safe house before he confronts Jon.  They’ve been through so much.  Jon has done so much for him.  He deserves to be happy for a little while.  Martin can ignore his discomfort for Jon’s sake, because Jon deserves everything.  Jon deserves the man he loves, and if (for some impossible to understand reason) he’s decided that is Martin, then Jon deserves Martin.</p>
<p>So Martin waits.  He’s good at waiting.  He’s been waiting his entire life for something he knows only by name.</p>
<p>Martin waits while Jon stumbles his way through their conversations.  He waits as Jon flusters at the sight of there being only one bed in Daisy’s cabin.  He waits while Jon hesitantly takes his hand while they sit in front of the fire, waits while Jon starts pressing his cheek against Martin’s shoulder when he passes by him, waits while Jon repeats his name again and again, softer and softer, with a depth of feeling Martin watches from afar like a diver submerged in murky water.</p>
<p>“Are we going to talk about it?”  Martin asks finally, holding the bunch of daffodils Jon picked especially for him.</p>
<p>Jon looks up at him with those eyes, so dark, so wide and trusting, and Martin feels like a black cloud.  He feels like a dagger.  He is the villain of his own story.</p>
<p>“Talk about what?”  Jon says, and there is a moment where Martin could turn back.  Be better than he is.  Live as the man Jon wants him to be.</p>
<p>But he isn’t the man Jon wants.  He’s a cardboard cutout with the face removed, for someone else to take a picture with.</p>
<p>“About you,” Martin says.  “About what you showed me in the lonely.  About what I <em><em>saw</em></em>.” </p>
<p>“We don’t have to,” Jon says, too quickly, and Martin’s stomach drops.  He already knew.  He could already tell.</p>
<p>“It’s not fair,” Martin says, and Jon says, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” and Martin says, “no I mean it’s not fair to <em><em>you</em></em>,” and Jon says, “but it’s my fault,” and Martin says, “I don’t love you.”</p>
<p>“What?”  Jon’s voice is quiet enough that Martin can hear the moment that Jon’s happy ending shatters like sugar glass.</p>
<p>“I don’t love you,” Martin whispers because he knows Jon heard him.  He sees it in his eyes.  “I don’t love you back.”</p>
<p>Jon takes a step backwards, shaking like a leaf.  “Oh god,” he murmurs, “I’m so sorry.  I just assumed, a-and kept acting like we... I should have asked.  I should have... I’m so sorry, Martin.”</p>
<p>“Please don’t apologize.”  Martin can’t stand to watch Jon blame himself.  Not again.  Not for this.  He sits down heavily on the kitchen chair beside him and feels the daffodil stems crunch as he holds them too tightly.  “I let you think that.  I wanted to try.  I thought that maybe if I just tried hard enough, I’d wake up one day and feel it too. Because you’re... Jon you’re so special to me.  You’re so important to me.  And you’re beautiful and kind and caring and you sacrificed everything to save me and I just thought—”</p>
<p>Martin’s voice crumples and dies and he curls down into his chest miserably.  “I thought if I could love anyone it would be you.  You’re so easy to love.”</p>
<p>“There’s a world of people who would disagree with you,” Jon snorts as he settles down on the arm of the couch facing Martin from several feet away.  </p>
<p>“You <em><em>are</em></em>,” Martin counters immediately.  “You’re my dream man.  You check all the boxes.  This is... this is a fairy tale.  Whisked away to a cottage by the man I thought I loved for <em><em>years</em></em> after he followed me into the plane of loneliness and pulled me out and still.”  Martin unfolds his hands in his lap and stares down at them, stares down at the mess of broken daffodils staining green into the grooves of his palm.  “And still I can’t feel it.”</p>
<p>“<em><em>Thought</em></em> you loved?”</p>
<p>“For years,” Martin sighs.  “Sometimes, before this, I thought maybe I really did love you.  I thought maybe the desire to see you safe, and to be important to you, the most important to you, that was what love was.  I thought maybe love was wanting you to think about me, and wanting to talk to you, and I thought maybe I had finally found it after years of waiting.”</p>
<p>“But isn’t that—“ Jon begins, but Martin cuts him off.</p>
<p>“But then the Lonely happened.  And I <em><em>saw</em></em> <em><em>you</em></em>, Jon.  And I saw what you felt for me, every day, every second, worrying over me and full of these messy, hot <em><em>feelings</em></em> that I had never felt before in my life.  Like staring at a fire through panes and panes of frosted glass.  You burn so brightly, Jon.  And I knew that must be what love is.  And next to that, my flimsy comparison looks like <em><em>nothing</em></em>.”</p>
<p>“Don’t say that, Martin.  You’re perfect,” Jon says, and he sounds so sure of himself that Martin almost wants to believe it’s the Eye speaking through him.  Supernatural proof that he could just be <em><em>better</em></em>.  But he knows it isn’t.</p>
<p>“I’m <em><em>not</em></em>.”  Martin hates the tears welling up behind his eyes because they undercut the rationality of his argument.  “I’m empirically not perfect.  I’m broken.”</p>
<p>“You’re not.”</p>
<p>Martin picks his head up and sees Jon’s face contorted with compassion.  “How can you say that?  You have something, the capacity to feel an emotion that exists, that everyone can feel, and I can’t feel it.  Not even for <em><em>you</em></em>.  That is the <em><em>definition</em></em> of broken, Jon.  A toy soldier, missing the windup key.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Jon says, his voice layering on thick like a shock blanket.  “Okay.  Let’s, let’s say you are...incapable of loving me back.  Why does that matter?”</p>
<p>“Why does that <em><em>matter</em></em>?”  The answer is so obvious, too obvious, painfully obvious, but Jon just keeps staring at him with those cool, calculating eyes.  As if Martin’s heart is a debate he could argue.  “Because it’s not fair.  Because you’ll be putting in one hundred percent and I’m only giving you back sixty.”</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <em>Because it feels alright now, but the longer we wait the more you’ll resent me.</em>
  </em>
</p>
<p>“It’s not less,” Jon says.  “Just different.”</p>
<p>“When you’re in a relationship, it’s less.”</p>
<p>Jon stands from the arm of the couch, rising gracefully to his feet like a dancer and he is so beautiful it is unfair.  It is unfair that he has been tossed and battered and beaten by the universe and then washed up crumpled on Martin’s shore, and Martin has the audacity to not love him.</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <em>Because I’ll always be guilty for trying less hard than you deserve.</em>
  </em>
</p>
<p>“Can I ask you something?”  Jon is standing in front of him now, cupping the bottom of Martin’s hands with one of his own, while his other picks the broken flower petals out of Martin’s skin and flicks them to the ground. There are tears in Martin’s eyes and they are the wrong kind of passion.</p>
<p>Jon rests his fingers on the bottom of Martin’s chin, just the barest touch, as if he could shatter him like the fantasy Martin has crafted so carefully around them.  He tilts Martin’s face up, until they are eye to eye.  Jon’s gaze is soft, and full of love, and even as the Archivist he is every scrap the human Martin aches to be.  </p>
<p>“What do you want to do tomorrow?”</p>
<p>“What?”  Martin sniffles.</p>
<p>“What do you want to do tomorrow, Martin?”  Jon’s eyes bore holes into him as if he’s seeking the answer to the universe.  “Wake up, no responsibilities.  What do you want to do?”</p>
<p>Martin blinks slowly, tears rolling forgotten down his cheeks.  “Um, w-well, the grocery was supposed to get in a fresh shipment of tomatoes tomorrow so we were going to go buy some so that you can make pasta sauce.”</p>
<p>“And do you want to do that?”  Jon presses, gently.</p>
<p>“I... I guess?”</p>
<p>“Well that’s that, then.”</p>
<p>“Jon, what are you— I don’t...” and then Martin is sobbing and it is awful and he is painfully aware that he is showing every single messy, uncontrollable emotion that exists except the only one that he’s supposed to.</p>
<p>“Martin...” Jon rests a hand on Martin’s cheek, taking some of the weight of his heavy head and wiping at his tears.  “Martin, all I want is to walk into town with you and buy some tomatoes.  I don’t need you to love me the way I love you.  I don’t need the same one hundred percent.  Because I like <em>this </em>Martin.  The you Martin.  As you are.  With or without a <em><em>windup key</em></em>.”</p>
<p>“It’s just a fairy tale,” Martin sobs out even as he leans desperately, pathetically, into Jon’s warm hand against his cheek.  “One day I’ll wake up and it’ll all be gone.”</p>
<p>“Maybe.”  Jon leans in and presses his forehead against Martin’s.  “But if I want to walk to town with you, and you want to walk to town with me, then I see no reason that we shouldn’t walk together.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you guys for reading :)</p>
<p>As usual, my aro fic gets....weirdly heavy and personal, but I hope some of you guys found something comforting in it.  I can't fix my own internalized arophobia, just like Martin can't, but that doesn't mean we can't be happy and find happiness in our relationships with other people.  Sometimes, you just gotta let yourself trust that other people wouldn't be with you if it wasn't making them happy.  And let that be enough.</p>
<p>If you like my writing, you can check my out on tumblr <a href="https://apatheticbutterflies.tumblr.com/">@apatheticbutterflies</a>, I post writing and meta and I'm very friendly I promise!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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